


These Things Between Us

by fitz_y



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: And More Angst, Angst, Broken Boys, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Did I Mention Angst?, Heavy Angst, I'm mad at Bucky for going into cryo, M/M, Missing Scene, This is not the happy fix-it fic you are looking for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-01-17
Packaged: 2018-09-18 04:39:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9368237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fitz_y/pseuds/fitz_y
Summary: Steve begs Bucky not to leave him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there, MCU fandom. My name is Fitz_y and I write angst. Some days this means angst with a happy ending, but today is not that day. There is no happy here. You’ve been warned.  
> Many thanks to my super amazing betas — to [Riventhorn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/riventhorn/pseuds/riventhorn), for giving this fic an initial read through and a good SPAG despite this not really being her fandom, and to [Sneaqui](http://archiveofourown.org/users/sneaqui/pseuds/sneaqui), who knows how to wrangle my wayward metaphors, cut the unnecessary and, above all, get my boys in character. ♥ ♥ ♥ to you both! All remaining mistakes are very much my own.

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

Steve can’t get it right in his head.

The room in Wakanda looms between them. Spacious. Grand. Yards of hand-woven carpet stretch between two beds. Floor-to-ceiling windows frame their bird’s-eye view above the mist. Somewhere, far below, the rainforest breathes in and out.

Steve should appreciate the quiet, the hospitality, the fact that nobody was killed.

But.

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

He can’t get the words right.

Silence holds him and Bucky together, the last glue between them after staunching wounds for five hours in T’Challa’s jet, after washing away dried blood—their own, maybe Tony’s too—after forty-eight hours of talking over, under and around Bucky’s whispered confession of “I have to go back on ice. It’s the only way.”

Bucky paces, walking a hobbled line between the door and the wall of windows. Favoring his left side, black sleeve over what remains of his Hydra-grafted weapon, Bucky moves like he’s carrying layers of bruises on every muscle and on every thought.

Dusk creeps in through the windows. Its velvet shadows slink into this space where Steve had foolishly thought they’d be safe. Bucky retreats into the only corner in the room not visible from the windows. He drops to the floor, props his back against the wall, crosses his legs and goes still. He does not look at Steve.

Steve waits. In his head, he sorts and discards—phrases, words, sounds. Every cluster of noise he’s tried so far has failed. Friendly questions, logical arguments, sympathetic understanding. Bucky’s self-deprecating grins, his rock-solid self-blame, his stuttered memories—that’s all the response Bucky has mustered.

_Pungent Brooklyn afternoons settling like a blanket over them. The tap of Bucky’s cigarette against a warped window sill. The heel-toe flip and the glide of the Carolina Shag._

Mind as clogged as the Brooklyn Bridge at five o’clock, Steve can’t get it right. But he will. He has to. He exhales, busies himself by lowering the bulletproof shades and the blinds over them, switching on the soft recessed lighting. He pries, bashes, scales.

Waiters in white serve dinner. One plate and one set of silverware because “Mr. Barnes should not eat for twenty-four hours before the procedure.”

Steve looks at the spread of chicken and vegetables.

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

He could watch the news while he eats, to cover the scrape of silverware against the plate, his overly loud half-choked swallows. But the news is just another minefield.

Steve eats in silence. He cleans his plate—stomach clenching around the fuel crammed too quickly down his throat, stomach heaving with the reminder that he only slept two hours last night—and rings for it to be taken away.

The waiter reaches for the plate in the same moment that Steve moves to pass it to him. A clumsy tussle to prevent ceramic catastrophe. Drops of chicken juice landing on Steve’s khakis.

Bucky’s eyes are closed, spine straight, still as a block of ice except for his periodic gnawing on his bottom lip. As if he’s hiding words in the right corner of his mouth. Jumpy words, powerful ones, words Bucky wants to keep safe in the dark.

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

Steve needs new weapons against those sounds Bucky is hiding. Words of his own. Words that are certain. Words with insistent force. They may be the last words he ever gets. He needs to pry, bash, scale.

Steve secures the door, checks the room’s surfaces one last time for bugs. He looks under the lamps, in the electronics, under the bed and behind the smoke detector. He finds nothing.

Steve moves to stand a few feet in front of Bucky. He swallows. He can’t get it right.

Bucky opens his eyes. Maybe he sees something on Steve’s face, or in the way he’s standing or in the insurmountable stale air between them. Bucky unfolds himself with ease and stands. As if an afterthought, he rearranges his face into a smile.

“I’m only going to say this once, Buck.” And that’s not right, that’s not the tone Steve needs. It’s too Captain America. He needs soft, like the underside of a wolf’s belly.

Bucky sheds his smile. “Yeah?” He asks, and then chews on his lips, securing his secret.

Steve pries, he bashes, he scales. “I think it’s too early to make this decision.” No. Still wrong.

“I told you, the quicker—”

“No, that’s not what I meant to say,” Steve rushes to interrupt.

“Okay.” Bucky says and waits, looks to the shuttered windows.

“I’ve asked you if you’re sure about this. And I’ll probably keep asking that question.” He swallows down the wrong words, digs for the right ones. “And I’ve given a lot of reasons why I think this is a bad idea. And we can disagree about whether or not you are responsible for what you did when Hydra had control of your mind. And we can disagree about whether or not I can keep you safe. I can respect that. But.” He sucks in air. Floods the room with his next words. “But there’s one thing I haven’t said.”

Bucky nods, looks at his feet, right hand—only hand—clenching into a fist at his side.

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

Rocks pave Steve’s stomach, but he takes another deep breath. “Please don’t do this.” A rush, a waterfall of words. “For my sake. Please don’t.” And it’s horrible and it’s selfish and it’s unfair, but it’s the only sound Steve has left. If only he could make Bucky understand.

“You might not remember everything about me. About us.”

_The jaunty angle of Bucky’s fedora. The pine undertone of his aftershave. The imprint of his thumb against Steve’s collarbone._

Words jump and shove at each other in their headlong rush up Steve’s throat. Garbled and raw. “I’m begging you not to do this. I’m begging you to stay. For me.”

Bucky’s chest rises and falls, steady. Steve wants to reach out and fit his hand there, to feel that proof of life under his palm.

_The bigness in Bucky’s arms when he took Steve in, closed him off from the world. The stickiness of their skin pressed together like water-stained book pages. The too-much, not-enough blunt pressure of Bucky’s insistent tongue._

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

“The world, it’s not the same without you. I’ve tried.” Words are tripping over themselves to get to Bucky. But they’re piling up at Bucky’s feet, falling in front of his downcast eyes.

_A new Times Square and an antique ballgame on the radio. An aloneness sitting just under Steve’s vocal box. An out-of-body detachment that lets him pretend he knows how to issue orders in this new world. A team clustered around a dented plastic table in a shawarma joint, a team despite themselves._

_The quick patter of Tony’s words shining in the sticky summer night. “Haven’t you been briefed on bisexuality, Cap? It’s a thing now.”_

_”You and Barnes? Huh. Guess the history books missed something.”_

_“No strings attached, right?”_

_Tony’s sure hands, so at home in this century. His snap words and his too-quick smile. Less than a week later, his shrug. “Pep and I, we’re giving it a shot again.”_

Steve had woken up in a world where wanting to feel the scrape of stubble against his wasn’t something he had to tuck away in a dark corner. And yet. He still hadn’t gotten the hang of love. He’d buried the want deep, poured himself into a uniform and a solid round disc.

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

Steve takes a step back to stop himself from reaching out and running the back of his knuckles across Bucky’s downturned cheekbone.

“I’ve tried, Buck. I’ve tried, but I can’t do this without you. If … as long as we’re here together, as long as we’re living in _this_ , this world together … it’ll be … okay. It has to be. I promise we’ll find a way to get those words out of your head. I _promise_.” Steve really doesn’t want to be lying. “Stay with me.”

Bucky swallows, gaze pinned to the floor.

_The world tilting when Bucky’s mask fell. The end of the line as Bucky’s fist blacked out Steve’s vision. A disappearing act. Months spinning into over a year. The milky hours before dawn witnessing Steve clutching a name close—at the back of his throat, a promise, Bucky—alive but not well._

_And then ... Bucharest. Berlin. Siberia. Bucky at his six._

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

Steve sinks to his knees. It’s inelegant and sends a jolt through his right leg. But he stays put, ducks forward in an attempt to force Bucky to see him.

Bucky’s jaw is tight. He’s breathing slowly through his nose, chewing on that lower lip of his. Still hiding his words. His eyes skitter left, refusing to meet Steve’s.

“Steve,” he breathes, “don’t.”

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

Steve swallows against the ache in his throat, the dry pull that tells him tears are waiting to crash through. “I love you, Buck. You were … you were my whole world. Still are. And I _know_ it’s shitty of me to dump this on you, what with everything you’ve been through. But I can’t do this another year without you—another hour.” His voice breaks against the word. “Knowing you could be here with me but aren’t. I can’t do it.” If life were a movie, a fairy tale, a novel, those three magic words would heal Bucky enough to love Steve back. Three magic words and Steve would be measured. And he would be enough.

Bucky taps at Steve’s shoulders, pushes him away slowly enough that Steve doesn’t lose his balance. He sidesteps Steve where he’s poised in supplication, neatly and carefully maneuvering so their bodies don’t collide. He puts his back to Steve, facing the beige blinds.

“I do remember,” Bucky says hoarsely. With none of the ease they’d found in the past days, speech like a lurching freight train. “I remember everything, or most everything. You were skinny, all bony fists and a loud mouth. Mrs. Thomas used to bang her cane on the floor whenever we’d fight.”

He huffs a laugh, and Steve stands. He dares to take a step, narrowing the distance between them. His throat is closing. A future—brighter than he’d hoped—dangling in front of him, sucking all the air from his lungs.  

“I remember the way our mattress squeaked if you so much as rolled over on it. Being on my knees in front of you in that drafty kitchen while we waited for the coffee to boil. Your eyes that always looked too big for your face and the way they teared up a little at the edges when you came. And how it always seemed like a surprise to you, like you couldn’t believe your body wasn’t out to betray you.”

Bucky turns now, not fully, but angling his body towards Steve, like maybe he’s letting him in. Steve waits, shoves down the words that want to climb from his throat.

“You made me ham sandwiches on rye wrapped in paper when I had to work a double shift at the docks. You smelled so good, like pencil shavings and lost thoughts when I came home stinking with the day’s sweat.” Bucky’s voice, low and blank, drifts in the space between them.

“I remember you afterwards, too. After the change. When I first saw you the only thing I could think was … how was I going to fit you against me at night? I was so worried you wouldn’t let me curl around you, wrap you up in me completely, my nose in your hair, my arm across your waist. But then that first night on the march back to camp, you just scooted right up against me and curled my arm over you. And it was right. We were right.”

 _Yes,_ Steve wants to say. _Yes,_ Steve wants to scream. _Yes,_ Steve wants to breathe against the skin under Bucky’s ear. He says nothing, unmoving, waiting.

“I remember the way you felt around me, when I was inside you, above me, all big and new, but you still opened up real sweet for me. Just for me.”

Bucky steps closer to the blinds, expanding the distance between them.

“No.” Bucky shakes his head. “I think I got it all. All the memories. I mean, most. There was Peggy, of course. But you told me we’d work it out after the war and that for now, it was just us two. Two soldiers in the war.”

The muscles in Bucky’s shoulders tighten under his white tank top. He falls silent, body half turned to Steve, gaze scrutinizing the window blinds.

Steve waits to see if he’s done.

Bucky stills. No longer chewing at his lip.

Somewhere, far below, a rainforest breathes in and out.

“And here I’ve been trying to figure out the right way to tell you we were …” Steve hesitates. Back then, they hadn’t talked about it. How could they now? “… to tell you we were lovers.”

“I know, Steve. I know,” Bucky says, voice gone soft and raw, as he turns, finally, to look at him. Except he’s not meeting Steve’s gaze. He’s staring at the line of Steve’s brows.

Bucky’s eyes are slate, none of the warmth and the crinkled edges Steve had seen in Siberia. Just this acceptance, colder than gunmetal. They hadn’t left the snow and ice of Siberia behind, after all. It had come home in Bucky. The rainforest hadn’t touched him.

Steve’s future splinters.

“You have to know I feel the same way that I did then, right?” Steve says around the nonexistent fist constricting his throat. He steps forward, wants to pretend he doesn’t notice Bucky flinch. “I love you, Buck. Always have and probably always will.”

“We can’t go home again, Steve. There is no home for us to go to. And I’m not him, anyway.”

Steve reaches for Bucky’s hands. But Bucky shifts back, holding his arm at his side like a good little toy soldier. “No, don’t,” Bucky says, “I’m not. I … I can’t.”

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

Steve can’t get it right.

“Bucky,” he says, “you don’t have to be him. I know you’re not him.”

_A steady arm around Steve’s shoulders. Three shirts, laundered and ironed in the kitchen on Sundays. A laugh bigger than the night sky._

“That’s not what I’m asking for. That’s not what I’m expecting. Whoever you are—whoever that turns out to be—I want to get to know him. Because that’s who you are now, and I’ll love any version of you the world can dream up, even when you’ve been through a nightmare. It’s still better than you not being here with me.” Steve’s chest tightens, a breath away from caving in.

“And we don’t have to be … lovers again,” he continues, the words big and blocky in his mouth. “I’m here for you however you want me. However you need me. I’d give anything. Everything. Just give me a chance.”

Bucky crosses his one good arm over his midsection, like he’s holding his guts in, keeping his insides from tumbling out.

“It’s not that I’m not grateful, Steve. I am. But I … I can’t stay here. It’s _me_ , it’s _my_ mind, don’t you see that? _You_ can’t defeat what’s in _my_ mind anymore than I can. And if one more person dies because of me, _one more_ … I couldn’t live with that. Taking me out of commission is the only way to stop fighting it.” He tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear. “I’m so tired of fighting.”

“Grateful,” Steve echoes. The word tastes like a bullet.

“I told you I wasn’t worth it.”

“I can decide that for myself. And you are.” His words too loud for this civilized room. His skin too tight across his chest, locking in all that blood and emotion. “ _We_ are worth it. Please give us a chance. You don’t have to fight alone. Please.” And the word wavers as it comes out. That wave of tears still pushes against his throat, threatening to peak, to crash, to flood the room.

Bucky shakes his head, staring at the ground. And Steve can see the exhaustion in the bruised bags under his eyes, in the uneven stubble, in the shadow of cuts that aren’t healing as quickly as they could.

“I can’t, Steve. I’m sorry. Please don’t ask that of me.”

Steve’s chest seizes up. Cement is being mixed in his windpipe. His gut is trying to crawl out of his body. Bucky has seen Steve, known every last speck of dust in his past and stood by him in the present. Bucky has seen Steve and decided he’s not enough. Not reason enough.

Steve Rogers has been measured by James Buchanan Barnes and has been found wanting.

 _Shoulder to shoulder on the Coney Island boardwalk. Back to front in a too-small, government-issued sleeping bag._ Across an insurmountable divide in this shiny, unbreakable room in Wakanda.

A lock. A wall. A cliff.

Steve steps backwards. “Okay, Buck. Okay. I won’t pressure you anymore. In the morning, I’ll be there when you … I’ll be there to support you. Whatever you need.”

Easy and friendly, nothing like a man whose life will be flash-frozen in the morning. Once the sun rises, Steve can dredge up that person. That friend. That Captain America who cares for his team. While the techs look on, while the doctors make adjustments, Peggy’s voice will once again echo in Steve’s head—Steve will support Bucky’s decision. And Steve will somehow keep living while his heart lies frozen in a protected chamber.

But right now Steve has no more words. No sounds left in his chest that could make Bucky understand. No more ways to get it right. He can’t pry, bash or scale.

He can’t breathe for one more minute in this shared room with the air gone stale from saying too much, from saying too little, from not saying it right. He turns to go.

He opens the door. He’s in a long hallway with high ceilings and triangular modern lighting. Outside there’s a vast kingdom he doesn’t know.

He walks, turning into a corridor before slumping down, back against the wall, knees to his chest.

Somewhere, far below, a rainforest breathes in and out.  



End file.
